


The Seasonally Appropriate Adventures of College Cabenson

by alexlovesolivia



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:14:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27047077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexlovesolivia/pseuds/alexlovesolivia
Summary: A series of one-shots by request about college-aged Alex and Olivia. Now taking requests for New Years and winter.
Relationships: Olivia Benson/Alexandra Cabot
Comments: 16
Kudos: 11





	1. PSL Hell

With two hours left until the judging began for the annual Halloween dorm decorating contest, Olivia was putting the finishing touches on the decor with her roommate, Abbie. The contest was supposed to be an immersive experience for the judges and, instead of merely decorating their dorm rooms, those who participated in the contest were expected to create a storyline to act out in three minutes or less that also included opportunities for the judges to participate. 

Abbie and Olivia’s theme was The Purge. They had set up screens to project their backdrop as city streets on Purge night as well as integrated audio clips of the Purge siren and announcement. Their characters were two heavily-armed girls who went out on Purge night, risking their lives to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. Their chosen ensembles were simple: black Soffe shorts and white t-shirts that they ripped holes in and splattered with fake blood. Olivia’s shoulder-length hair was wavy and unkempt and she and Abbie had splashed fake blood on their arms and legs for good measure. 

Meanwhile, across the hall and four doors down, Alex and Serena were in PSL Hell. They had decorated their dorm room with every autumn blog stereotype, complete with  _ Hocus Pocus  _ playing in the background. Their storyline was the judges were Serena’s party guests and, as a dare, they were to stand in front of a mirror and say ‘Pumpkin Spice Latte’ three times to see if Autumn Girl would appear. Those unlucky enough to summon her would be transported to PSL Hell, an abode of the damned where it was always October and Autumn Girl would continuously tell you everything she liked about the season with no end in sight. 

Although there were two hours left, Alex and Serena were already prepared for the judges. Alex was clad in her Autumn Girl attire: a cream colored sweater, jeggings tucked into a pair of brown knee-high boots, and a chunky plaid flannel scarf. There was a pumpkin spice latte, a jack-o-lantern cookie, and an uncarved pumpkin readily available for her to use as props. Her plan was to say “Leggings and lattes!” while holding up her pumpkin spice latte, get out her phone and take autumn aesthetic pictures of the jack-o-lantern cookie, and even ask one of the judges to take a picture of her tossing fake leaves in the air. “Did you get my good side?” she was going to ask them, along with, “Is it good enough to post?” Autumn Girl was probably going to be the most obnoxious character in the contest but with the stress of midterms now behind them, Alex was ready to fully immerse herself in the character and have some fun.

...even if some of that fun was going to come at the expense of her girlfriend.

“I’m going to say hi to our girls,” Serena told Alex now that they were all prepared. “Don’t you want to see Liv?”

“I could use some time with my girlfriend,” Alex agreed. “And you should  _ definitely  _ see Abbie. There’s still two hours left. Why don’t you take her somewhere secluded and  _ exciting  _ if you get my drift.”

Serena grabbed her key card and her phone. “I know exactly what you’re getting at and I have no qualms with using a makeout session to distract my girlfriend.”

Abbie immediately kissed Serena when she arrived, but Olivia was hesitant to even hug her girlfriend. “You shouldn’t be here, Alex. We agreed not to see each other before the contest.” 

“Is that how you greet the love of your life?” Alex smirked.

“Serena and I are heading out,” Abbie said to the two of them, her arm now wrapped around her girl. “We’ll be back in an hour.”

“An hour?” Olivia asked in disbelief. “Abigail, we still have to do a sound check. We have to make sure our lighting is okay. You’re not even in your costume.”

Serena whispered something in Abbie’s ear and Olivia knew her roommate was a goner. “Chill, Liv,” Abbie told her. “You’re really going to do all this for a gift card?”

“This is  _ not  _ about the gift card. Gift cards get spent,” Olivia insisted. “This is about the glory of winning. Glory is forever.”

Abbie and Serena left the dorm room without any care for Olivia’s quest for glory. It was now just the two of them and Alex had every intention of seducing her girlfriend to make her forget about the contest.

“I love when your hair is like this,” Alex said as she ran her fingers through Olivia’s hair. “The tousled look reminds me of when I’m on top of you and－”

“I’m going to stop you right there,” Olivia interrupted. “I know you told Serena to go make out with Abbie and I know you want to do the same in hopes of distracting me but, need I remind you, you made the mistake of having sex with me last night. I’m not sexually frustrated right now no matter how beautiful you look and how much those jeans hug you in the right places.”

Alex took off her sweater so as not to get it stained with fake blood and laid down on her girlfriend’s bed. “Okay, I  _ am  _ responsible for making Serena distract Abbie, but it serves you right. I thought you’d be a good girlfriend and sign up for me when I was in class so all the good themes didn’t get taken. I told you to sign me up for  _ Stranger Things  _ because Serena and I wanted something ‘80s and you intentionally signed us up for PSL Hell because you thought it was the worst theme.”

Olivia laid down next to her, hoping she could resist any temptation to go any further with Alex. “Well, that serves  _ you _ right for eating the last serving of brownie goo in the dining hall and not just the last serving of the day. That was the last serving of brownie goo for the whole week. It’s only served on weekends. You took it from my plate when I went to get ice cream to put on top of it. That was  _ my  _ goo, Alex.”

“I only ate the last serving of brownie goo to get back at you for－nevermind,” Alex laughed, thinking about how obsessed her girlfriend had become with the gooey brownies that were served in the dining hall. “This could go on forever. I love you, Olivia.”

Olivia kissed her girlfriend’s hand. “I love you, too, and I only chose PSL Hell for you and Serena because I know you two are gonna kill it with that theme. You’re the cutest Autumn Girl.”

Alex wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, holding her as close as she could. “Let’s make a bet. If I win, I get to shower with you tonight while you wash off all this fake blood.”

“I’ll take that bet.” Olivia pretended to be deep in thought about what she should suggest if she won. “And how about if  _ I  _ win, you still shower with me while I wash this fake blood off. Plus, you spend the night with me.”

  
**Thanks for reading! If you have any requests, feel free to let me know. :)**


	2. Olivia's Black Friday Survival Guide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Black Friday one-shot by request from SnowsGay19.

Never having experienced Black Friday at a mall, twenty-year-old Olivia never understood the hype behind it or why people insisted on waiting in line at a store for hours when the same items could be purchased online and most sales lasted throughout the entire month of December. If there was something she or her mom wanted on Black Friday, they’d just go online from the comfort of home and add it to their cart, but that year Olivia had been invited to spend the holiday weekend with her girlfriend Alex at her parents’ house in a Boston suburb and－for the Cabot women－Black Friday was practically a bloodsport.

They planned for Black Friday the way Olivia imagined famous generals throughout history planned battlefield tactics. There were maps of the mall spread throughout the table, a list of which stores had the best sales and what time they opened, but the crowning jewel for Olivia was the Monopoly game pieces that Alex’s grandma used to show their flow of movement throughout the mall. The Cabot men said Olivia could watch football with them while their better halves shopped, but since Olivia wanted to spend as much time as she could with Alex, she decided to give Black Friday shopping a try; however, the more she witnessed their planning, the more she felt herself go from intrigued to terrified and there was no longer an opportunity to turn back. 

Three generations of Cabot women were at that kitchen table and Olivia couldn’t help noticing the smile on the face of her girlfriend－the youngest Cabot woman. Two years ago, the mall released an app with the locations of the stores, store hours, and average foot traffic by the hour. It would make Black Friday shopping exponentially more efficient, but that would mean ending a tradition for her grandmother that went back fifty years, so Alex decided to keep that bit of information to herself.

Most of the stores didn’t open until 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, but Alex’s grandmother insisted on leaving at 7 although the mall was only a fifteen-minute drive away. They circled the parking lot for ten minutes, completely unable to find a spot, so Olivia suggested that they pull over and get out of the car while she continued to drive around and find a spot. Her suggestion earned points with the two oldest Cabot women and, most importantly, it earned a kiss from Alex.

“Babe, you’re the best girlfriend in the entire world,” Alex said right before getting out of the car. “Meet me at Bath and Body Works. They’re having their buy 3, get 3 free sale.”

Olivia figured Grandma Cabot’s Mercedes cost about as much as three years of college tuition, so she proceeded with caution. She knew a woman who drove a car that expensive didn’t need any Black Friday doorbusters, but Olivia couldn’t help get a warm feeling when she thought about her girlfriend being part of a tradition for the Cabot women that started decades before she was even born.

Forty-five minutes had passed before Olivia was able to find a parking spot and she thought the worst was behind her until she entered Bath and Body Works and saw that her girlfriend was lost in a sea of shoppers. She checked her phone and noticed there was no signal inside the store.  _ Of course there’s not. Okay, just look for a tall, gorgeous blonde girl wearing your hoodie.  _ But even that didn’t narrow it down enough for Olivia.  _ Damn the amount of hot blonde girls in this store. _

“Alex!” she called out.

“Liv!” she heard her girlfriend respond. “Walk toward the 3-wick candles.”  _ There are literally 3-wick candles everywhere.  _ “The ones by the big Christmas tree!” 

After the journey she had been on, all Olivia wanted to do was hug Alex and maybe go treat the two of them to something from Starbucks, but Alex was on a mission and she knew there was no way she’d be able to pry her from that store. 

“What candles are you gonna get?” Olivia asked her girlfriend. “Let’s get the Christmas tree scent for your apartment.”

“I like that one, too,” Alex told her. “I’ll pick out a few for us and then Grandma wants me to get twenty for her.”

“Twenty?” Olivia asked in disbelief. 

“She gave me her credit card and a shopping list,” Alex said as she sniffed a peppermint scented candle. “She also said for me to pick out a few things for myself, which reminds me that I’m almost out of body wash. Liv, can you go get some for me?”

Olivia wrapped her arms around Alex from behind and held her close. “Sure, I can. What kind do you want?”

Alex slightly turned her head to give her girlfriend a kiss. “Just pick whatever you want me to smell like.”

It was a simple enough task and one that Olivia was willing to complete. She’d browse through the different body washes and pick out the ones she liked best, but her girlfriend’s suggestion of picking out the ones she wanted her to smell like made her thoughts shift to Alex lathering the body wash while she was in the shower and the task that had once seemed simple was now becoming difficult for Olivia.  _ Who needs a loofah when I can lather these on her myself. But should I get her the gel body wash or the creamy one?  _

“Liv,” she heard her girlfriend say, pulling her out of her fantasy world of lathering various scented body washes on Alex. “Which ones did you pick?” There were only two body washes in Olivia’s hands, a far cry from the twelve that Alex had expected. “I should have known you’d get lost in shower thoughts. This is almost as bad as the time we went to Victoria’s Secret because I had to go underwear shopping and I told you to help me pick some out. You were blushing the entire time.”

“Because I was imagining the possibilities,” Olivia said in her own defense. “I’m obviously bad at shopping, so why don’t I take your bags and get in line while you finish shopping.”

It was about a thirty minute wait from the end of the line to the registers, which gave Alex plenty of time to finish her shopping. Her experience at Bath and Body Works was all the Black Friday shopping Olivia could handle, so she was grateful when she found an empty bench to sit on. She told Alex to leave all the shopping bags with her and she’d watch them so Alex wouldn’t have to carry any heavy bags while she shopped. It was a clever way to get out of shopping and the suggestion earned yet another kiss from Alex along with an ‘I love you.’

With nothing else to do, Olivia took out her phone and took a wide-angle selfie with some of the bags. She sent it to the group chat along with a message that said, “ _ The cost of being a good girlfriend _ .”

“ _ You too? _ ” Elliot responded a couple of minutes later. “ _ Kathy has me holding her Bath and Body Works bags while she’s at H&M. _ ”

Olivia couldn’t help laughing when she read her best friend’s response and she was grateful that she’d have him to talk to while waiting for Alex. “ _ You know those stereotypes about middle-aged guys moping on the bench while their wives shop? I am now one with those men. I feel their pain,”  _ Olivia responded via text.

A few seconds later, Olivia received a notification that her friend Munch had responded in the group chat. “ _ Black Friday is nothing more than a symbol of excessive consumerism in America. _ ”

_ Classic Munch.  _ Olivia was about to respond when a message from her girlfriend appeared in the group chat. “ _ Is that how you really feel, Olivia? By the way, you’re saying all of this in the wrong group chat. _ ”

Olivia looked at the name of the group chat and noticed it wasn’t the one she and her three best friends Elliot, Munch, and Fin had been using for the past five years and jokingly named “We Dem Boyz.”  _ Crap. I should have made sure this was the one without Alex. _

“ _ It was nice knowing you Liv, _ ” Fin responded.

“ _ This is almost as bad as when she decorated those pink glitter binders for her sorority and sent us the picture instead of her sorority sisters, _ ” Elliot reminded them. 

“ _ We still call her Sparkles, _ ” Fin added.

Not wanting to get herself into any more trouble, Olivia decided to put her phone away and wait patiently for Alex. She did some people watching for five minutes before she saw her beautiful girlfriend walking toward her with a shopping bag and two Starbucks drinks.

“Hi Sparkles,” Alex said as she sat down next to her and handed her a drink.

“I’m only accepting that nickname because you brought me a drink,” Olivia responded. “And because I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Alex said, her head resting on Olivia’s shoulder. 

“I’m sorry about what I said in the group chat.”

“It’s okay. I know this isn’t your thing,” Alex smiled. “That’s why you get extra girlfriend points for being here.”

Olivia tasted the hot chocolate on Alex’s lips when she kissed her. “And what can I cash those points in for?”

“Something I bought you for being a good girlfriend.” Alex pulled out a New York Giants beanie from her shopping bag and placed it securely on Olivia. “I knew this would look cute on you.”

Alex grabbed her phone from her purse so she could take a selfie with Olivia. In the picture, she was kissing Olivia’s cheek and she knew she had to post it when she saw how cute Olivia’s smile was. “I’m captioning this with, ‘ _ My adorable girlfriend survived her first Black Friday. _ ’”

Olivia knew under normal circumstances, her girlfriend would be out there shopping with her mom and her grandma, but that night she was content to sit on the bench and drink hot chocolate while being cuddled in Olivia’s arms.


	3. New Year's Eve 2020

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A New Year's Eve one-shot by request from Mezz64 on ff.net

2020 had been the most complicated year of Olivia’s life. Whenever she had imagined being twenty-one, she had thought about going for drinks with her friends or getting dressed up to go to a club with her girlfriend. She’d get to see Alex in heels and maybe a tight-fitting dress, but Alex turned twenty-one in May－two months after the start of lockdown－and the only attire she had seen Alex in since then were yoga pants, t-shirts, hoodies, and pajamas. It wasn’t the way she was used to seeing her fashionista girlfriend dress, but Olivia thought she looked cute and cozy and she could never resist cuddling her.

When their campus shut down, Olivia had to move out of her sorority house and Alex had to move out of student housing, so the two of them decided to get an apartment together. The apartment was far from luxurious, but it was their quaint little love nest and their lives had changed so much in the nine months since they had moved in. 

In March, they were juniors and their lives had been centered on passing their classes, going on dates, and having a typical college experience. But it was now the end of December and they were five months away from graduation. After countless hours spent preparing her law school applications, Alex was given early acceptance into Harvard Law School and would be moving to Boston in the fall and, after countless hours of soul searching and much to her mother’s chagrin, Olivia had decided to become a police officer instead of choosing a career in academia.

With two hours left until 2021, Alex and Olivia were finishing off a greasy pepperoni pizza and a $5 bottle of red wine. It was far from classy, but the two of them felt as if it was the perfect way to finish off the year. 

“I’m sorry you’re having cheap wine with me instead of some $500 bottle of champagne like you would at your parents’ house,” Olivia said before taking a bite of her pizza slice. When some of the toppings slid off and landed on the plate, Alex couldn’t help but smile.

“My gorgeous girlfriend has been working out more than ever and is wearing joggers and a sports bra right now,” Alex pointed out. “Why would I want to be anywhere else?”

“I knew you were just using me for my body,” Olivia teased.

Alex took a sip from the plastic Disney Princess cup that she had designated as her wine glass. “You’re the one with the overly active libido.”

“I’m the one with the overly active libido?” Olivia scoffed. “You’re the one always caressing my arms when I’m on top of you and saying ‘Liv, you’re so strong’ and ‘Liv, you go so deep’ and ‘Liv, baby, don’t stop.’”

“What about you?” Alex teased. “‘Alex, youre so－”

“Stop,” Olivia interrupted, suddenly becoming shy.

“The amount of sex we’ve had has been the highlight of 2020 for me,” Alex told her now blushing girlfriend. 

“You’ve accomplished way more this year than mastering a few new positions with me,” Olivia reminded her. “Switching to online learning wasn’t easy but you managed to get a 4.0.”

“What about you?” Alex asked as she reached for her girlfriend’s hand. “You figured out what you want to do after college. My future Officer Benson, I’m so proud of you.”

“At least one of the women in my life is proud of me,” Olivia joked. “My mom would prefer it if my title were Professor Benson and not Officer Benson.”

“I think it’s normal for parents to be that way,” Alex told her. “I got into Harvard Law School and my dad wishes it were Harvard Medical School.”

“Speaking of,” Olivia said as she raised up her plastic Lightning McQueen cup. “I’d like to make a toast to my girlfriend who not only managed to get a high LSAT score during a pandemic, but also got early acceptance into Harvard Law School.”

“And to my girlfriend,” Alex said as she ‘clinked’ her Disney Princess cup to Olivia’s Lightning McQueen cup. “You can always practice using your handcuffs on me.”

“Alex,” Olivia laughed. 

Humor was their coping mechanism and it had been since the moment Alex got her acceptance letter. Once their celebration ended, reality sank in and they knew it was only a matter of months before they were living in different states. Alex would be living with her parents in Boston while she attended law school and, while she was in the academy, Olivia would be living with her mom because it’d be too painful to live in their current apartment without Alex.

Alex finished off the wine in her cup and poured herself some more. “I’m not just losing my girlfriend. I’m losing my best friend. I’m going to miss our oddly specific Google searches whenever one of us wants to prove intellectual superiority over the other. I’m going to miss the way you perfectly toast a Pop Tart and the fact that neither of us can cook so when we don’t feel like getting takeout, we have Paw Patrol mac and cheese and wine for dinner. Most of all, I’m going to miss laughing with you and the way you know how to instantly calm me down when I’m having an anxiety attack or if I can’t sleep, you just hold me and everything feels better. Nobody knows me the way you do. You’re my person, Olivia.”

“And I’ll still be your person. Yes, I’ll be in New York and you’ll be in Boston, but that doesn’t mean we’re breaking up.”

“Long-distance relationships only have a 58% success rate and most couples－”

“We’re not most couples,” Olivia interrupted her. “To prove it, I have something for you.”

Olivia went over to their bedroom to get something she had hidden in her chest of drawers－a promise ring she had bought for Alex a few weeks prior. It was a thin ring with small diamonds all along the band, but it was what twenty-one-year-old Olivia could afford and she promised herself she’d buy something a little flashier when it was time to actually propose to Alex.

She walked back to the kitchen table where Alex was still sitting and, although it wasn’t a proposal, she decided to get down on one knee and slip the ring on Alex’s finger.

“Liv, is this－”

“Not yet,” Olivia smiled at her. “I know we can’t get married yet, but this is my promise to you that I’m yours and I’ll always be yours. The past nine-months have brought us closer together and strengthened our relationship. I know distance won’t be easy, but you’re it for me, Alex, and I want to spend forever with you.”

Alex was at a loss for words, so instead she stood up and motioned for her girlfriend to get off her knees. When she was face-to-face with Olivia, she wrapped her arms around her and started kissing her. “I love you so much,” she managed to say after nearly two minutes of kissing Olivia.

“I love you, too,” Olivia responded before stealing another kiss. “Aren’t you glad you stopped friendzoning me two years ago?”

“Olivia,” Alex laughed.

The two of them had grown up so much in 2020, but most importantly they had grown up together. When they watched the ball drop at midnight and the year 2021 light up, Olivia felt comfort in knowing it wasn’t the start of the year that’d tear them apart, it was the start of a year in the lifetime that she planned on spending with Alex.


End file.
